Kalman: Bruins Need To Find Their Spark Earlier
BOSTON (CBS) - A showdown with the red-hot Chicago Blackhawks should've been enough to bring out the best in the Bruins on Thursday.
The Bruins were playing their first home game in more than a week. Their captain Zdeno Chara was back in the lineup for the first time after a 19-game injury absence. The Bruins were coming off a victory in Arizona.
But there wasn't much in the Bruins' play for more than two periods that told you it was a special night. It looked like just your average night at TD Garden and the Bruins looked like your run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road NHL team.
The Bruins had some scoring chances, had a little bit of misfortune with some bounces and gave up a couple goals on defensive breakdowns and giveaways. Ho-hum, another night and another loss – the Bruins' sixth in their past eight games, as they barely continue to cling to a wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Bruins lost 3-2 to the Blackhawks, who have now won eight in a row, but it wasn't that close of a game until Milan Lucic's end-to-end rush set up Torey Krug's goal with 12:17 elapsed in the third period. The goal provided the final score and Lucic's effort alone was enough to electrify everyone in attendance. After he made the pass, Lucic took a late hit from Chicago agitator Andrew Shaw. Bruins center Chris Kelly took exception to Shaw's hit, and after a scrum Kelly and Shaw duked it out (with Kelly landing the majority of the blows).
After the crowd came alive, the Bruins played with fire. Although they still came up a goal short, they finished the third period with a 10-2 shots advantage. They reminded everyone what the Bruins, almost fully healthy after the return of Chara, could be if they decided to establish their identity earlier in games, especially against some of the NHL's elite.
"You know, I think it's pretty obvious – if we play on our toes like we did towards the end, we are very hard to play against," Chara said after the loss. "Early on I thought we were maybe giving Chicago a little bit too much respect and kind of playing on our heels. But I thought it was a good effort; we've just got to continue to play like we did towards the end of the game."
The Bruins were credited with 29 hits. That just makes you question what the stats crew defines as a hit. Certainly you couldn't have watched the first 2 ½ periods and had any notion that the Blackhawks were physically threatened by the Bruins. Ben Smith had his way in front of the Bruins' net on the goal he scored and the one he set up. Patrick Kane fanned on his shot twice to the right of the slot before he scored his third-period goal without a Bruins player getting within a foot of him, never mind making him pay a price. Lucic was the worst culprit, as he might as well have bought a ticket to watch Kane's offensive display.
You definitely have to question the focus and motivation of this Bruins team. They don't come out of the gate with fire, they fall behind in games and they don't finish around the net. Coach Claude Julien took the positive road by not questioning his team's effort, just its execution. The effort might be satisfactory, but the Bruins have never won with a minimum amount of try. It has to be an all-out effort.
Now we know in pro sports a 100-percent effort right off the bat can be hard to produce every night. That's where a team needs its leaders to find the right button to push. Sometimes it's a fight. Sometimes it's just a big hit or an impressive offensive play that rallies the rest of the team. That was the effect of Lucic's effort on Krug's goal. But it turned out to be too little, too late.
This isn't another lament over Shawn Thornton's departure. The Bruins were certainly justified for parting ways with Thornton. But without Thornton around to know when to drop the gloves and rally the troops, the Bruins need others to stir the pot. And they need to do it earlier. And they can't wait for a cementhead like Shaw to do something dumb like hit Lucic four seconds after a pass.
You can't start a fire without a spark. It might take someone with brains rather than brawn, but there has to be a few guys every night reading the team's temperature and doing what it takes to make sure the game doesn't get away from the Bruins before they start playing hard.
"I don't want to use the word waiting just because I know in this room everybody is working for it, so it's not like we're just sitting around waiting for something to happen, something to change," Krug said. "Guys are working towards that, and we're going to continue to work towards that, so hopefully if we keep coming to work every single day focused and doing what the coaches ask of us, it's going to turn around for us."
It might be difficult for the Bruins to turn the tide with anything but physicality. The Bruins' forward corps is only missing David Krejci right now. Yet they still have three AHL forwards in the lineup. It seems every night there's a new face in the lineup, new line combinations and defense pairs being formed by Julien.
There are tens of scouts and front-office types from other teams checking out the Bruins and Bruins front-office people are making the rounds. It's obvious some deals are on the way, and that can be a distraction to players. There should still be enough talent to score and defend like a team that belongs in the top half of the conference standings, and none of this should be an excuse for not being engaged from the start of the game.
Regardless of the talent level in the lineup, though, there are no excuses for not being physical and being hard to play against. Physical punishment has a way of closing the talent gap.
Physicality also requires a mindset that so far this Bruins team hasn't showed, and might not until bigger permanent changes are made.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
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